The Joel Klatt Show: A College Football Podcast - CFP Semifinal Picks: Indiana-Oregon & Miami-Ole Miss + Transfer Portal latest

Episode Date: January 5, 2026

FOX Sports’ lead College Football analyst Joel Klatt makes his picks for the College Football Playoff Semifinals between Indiana & Oregon and Miami vs Ole Miss. He explains why we should be talking about this Indiana team as one of the most dominant teams in recent memory as they take on the Ducks. Klatt points out Oregon’s best path to an upset against the only unbeaten team in the country. He then makes his pick as Miami takes on an Ole Miss team that is coming off a huge win over Georgia but also dealing with continued coaching uncertainty as several staff members are juggling two jobs – for Lane Kiffin’s LSU team and for the Rebels - as they prepare for the biggest game in Ole Miss history. Klatt also reacts to the latest Portal news as Indiana has found their QB and WR combo for next year’s team. He also discusses the latest moves by Penn State, bringing in DC D’Anton Lynn from USC and Matt Campbell’s QB from Iowa State, Rocco Becht. Klatt reacts to Kyle Whittingham’s hires at OC and DC for Michigan and the news that several key players for Michigan have entered the Transfer Portal. 0:00-1:56 Intro1:57-14:39 Peach Bowl preview14:40-22:52 Fiesta Bowl preview22:53-27:22 Transfer portal news around CFB Use my code for 10% off your next SeatGeek order*: https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/KLATT10 Sponsored by SeatGeek. *Restrictions apply. Max $20 discount. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If this was an Alabama logo, a Georgia logo, next to this team, we would all be talking about, is this the best team that we've ever seen in college football? What Dan Lannning has done and what he's built at Oregon, I don't think it can be overstated. And the reason we're in this situation where Ole Miss doesn't know what's going on with the offensive coaching staff is because of Lane. Hey, like today is why we love college football. Hey, what's up everybody? Welcome into the Joel Clatt Show. I'm Joel Clatt.

This show is brought to you by Graduate by Hilton. We thank them for their support as always. Hey, if you have not done so, please subscribe to the show. That would be awesome if you did. We're getting up there close to 300,000 subscribers, which is awesome in our, I think, what, three, four years that we've been doing this? I actually lost track. If you haven't followed us on social media, you can do that wherever you like to social media.

We're out there. We're giving you our content in shorter form, as you know. You can follow us at Joel Clatio. And then if you are just listening to this as an audio product, wherever you like to listen to your podcast, make sure to rate and review us. That would be awesome as well. Let's get into these semifinal matchups. We've got some Transfer Portal news that we can get to, some coaching staff news,

but mostly these games. We've got to get into these previews of these national semifinal games, and we're going to have two really good games. At least I think so. Vegas thinks so as well as Indiana and Oregon are going to tangle in an all-Big Ten matchup. And Miami and Ole Miss are going to tangle. A lot of people thought, including myself, that we were going to get some sort of Georgia, Ohio State semifinal,

does not materialize Miami takes care of Ohio State. Ole Miss takes care of Georgia in that all SEC battle. And here we go. We got the Cains and Arabs in the Fiesta Bowl. That one's on Thursday night. I'm going to start with the Indiana, Oregon game, though, because these are the two teams that actually, when you look at the Vegas standings, if you will, or odds,

they're actually the top two teams in terms of odds to win the national championship. Right now, the odds on favorite is Indiana. And right behind them is Oregon. and they're going to face off in the Peach Bowl on Friday. This is going to be one heck of a game. And we already saw the game. As we all know, this is a rematch from an Indiana win earlier this year, up in Eugene, and what was an incredible game

that was tied in the fourth quarter until Indiana finally pulled away with an incredible drive from Mendoza. He threw back shoulders to Surat over on the left side. And so we get this rematch, which a lot of us are excited for, including myself. Okay. Let me talk a little bit about Indiana because I will be honest. We're all in the sport. We're all in the sport because we love it.

And there are things sometimes that can be frustrating. And I'm sensing one of those starting to happen now with this Indiana team. And that is, I'm not going to go full on lack of respect, but there is an overlooking. of Indiana that is happening right now across the country. It doesn't matter who you're listening to, what you're watching. There's an overlooking of Indiana that is currently happening. And the reason I know that is because their resume is actually,

without a doubt, the best resume in all of college football. They're the most tested team in the country right now. and they're the ones that are 14 and 0. They're the ones that have handled everybody. They're the ones that have only given up more than 15 offensive points one time this year. And that was in a game on the road to Penn State. This is the team, Indiana, that in only two games have given up more than one touchdown. Right?

Like this is the team that is so sound. and mistake-free and just absolutely bludgeoned Alabama. That game was reminiscent to the games that we saw early in the playoff lineage when we had like Bama beat up on Michigan State, Clemson beat up on Ohio State, and some of those early playoffs when we had the 14th playoff. That's exactly what Indiana did to Alabama and the Rose Bowl this past week. And yet, if you listen to people, you know, in particular some of the loudest, and most prevalent, you get the sense that there's like this,

anyone can win this national championship. My goodness, we didn't know any of these teams would be here. Listen, if this Indiana team had any other logo next to their name, and by the way, by the way, I'm going to beat you to the comments down below, and please go ahead and comment, and I love to jump down there as well. I know that I'm guilty of this as well because I talked glowingly all year, Now, granted, about Indiana, but yes, about Ohio State. And if this was Ohio State's logo next to this resume, next to this team in Indiana,

if this was an Alabama logo, a Georgia logo, next to this team, we would all be talking about, is this the best team that we've ever seen in college football? Because no team in the history of our sport has ever been able to go 16 and 0. Now, granted, that's a scheduling thing, but this team has a chance to do that. this team defensively has been one of the great defenses that we've seen in a long time. And again, I'm part of this. I know that I've overlooked Indiana to an extent during the course of this season, but not anymore. And no, this is not a wide open playoff.

These two teams, Indiana and Oregon, are the odds on favorite by a wide margin. And the reason is, is because of how tested they are. And that is specifically so with this Indiana team. They're the ones that have beaten three teams that played in the quarterfinals in the college football playoff. Oregon played in the quarterfinal, Bama played in the quarterfinal, lost Indiana and Ohio State play. No other team can say that. They beat three quarterfinal teams this year. This team stands on business as the best team in college football.

And I just wanted to get that kind of like off my shoulders early in this because it's been bothering me this week. I've been listening to a lot of products out there, and I don't think Indiana gets the respect that they deserve because that's a great football team, a great football team. And to that end, I look at this team, and there are four tight games that they've played this year. And if you're Oregon, you've got to mimic those four tight games. One of them was Oregon,

and so they're going to understand this blueprint because they participated in this game. But the blueprint is not simple, but it's there. It's there. And that is that in every one of these games, a few things happened. Number one is you've got to attack the strengths of Indiana. And you've got to at least make them work to succeed in areas that they're really strong. Okay.

And the first area that I would go to is their run game. And every one of their close matchups this year, and their close matchups I categorize is the close game against Iowa on the road, the close game against Oregon on the road, Penn State on the road and then Ohio State in the Big Ten championship game. And every one of those games, they were held under four yards per carry. So that's kind of like prerequisite number one. You have to do that just to be in the game.

It doesn't mean that you're going to win, but just to be in the game. And one of the things that just to build and expand on that point just quickly is that when they're able to run the ball efficiently like they did in the Rose Bowl, is they become almost unstoppable on third down. It's what has led to them being the number one third down offense in all of college football is because they're in short yardage. They can control the line of scrimmage, they can run the football, and then they can convert. They stay on the field then.

They tire you out, and then they're going to score, and their defense is rested, and their defense dominates. So that's number one. You have to control their run game. Number two, you've got to find a way to score on them in the red zone, and I'm not talking about field goals. I'm talking about getting the ball in the end zone. And this is one of the things that goes totally unnoticed.

noticed about this team, partly because they've got a Heisman trophy winner on the offensive side. And we all looked at Ohio State as the dominant defense, in particular in the Big Ten, and in the country for the majority of the year. This defense is elite. And one of the areas that they're most elite, and I would say actually the best is red zone defense. They just don't allow touchdowns. They just don't allow touchdowns. In fact, they're number one in the country in red zone touchdown percentage against. It's down there at like 26%. It's a wide. wild low number. We haven't seen a low number like this since I think, I think, and you can correct me if I'm wrong. Like 2017 LSU right in there is the last time we saw a red zone defense that

was this stingy as it relates to giving up touchdowns. So that's one area. For instance, Oregon was 0 for three scoring red zone touchdowns in their first matchup. They lost 30 to 20. Right. So like you've got to convert those opportunities when you're able to get it in the red zone. The last thing is, is that you've got to play clean against this Indiana team because they play clean. They don't make mistakes. You know, the old line about Val Kilmer slash Iceman and Top Gun, ice cold, no mistakes. That's how they play. Kurt Signetti with the buzz cut. Maybe we should just start calling them Iceman. Because you look at the two areas that can get you beat the quickest in any game. Penalties and turnovers, they're phenomenal. They are phenomenal. In fact, they're number three in the country

in terms of penalties per game at only 3.6. So you just don't get a lot of laundry on the field. And you don't get the football on the field either. They've only committed eight turnovers so far. That's third in the country. Meanwhile, they create a lot of turnovers. So their turnover margin is actually plus 18 right now. That's tied for number one in the country with Arizona.

So you've got to play clean against this team. And by the way, all three of those things, just to be in the game late. And then you get to the point where their clutch maybe the most clutch team in all of college football. The Heisman trophy winner, Fernando Mendoza was clutch against Iowa. He was clutch against Oregon. He was clutch against Penn State.

He was clutch against Ohio State. This guy made great throws in only 16 attempts in the Rose Bowl. So this is what's so difficult about beating Indiana is that you've got to conquer all of that just to be in the game. And once you're in the game, now you've got to deal with the Heisman trophy winner who's throwing dimes out there. They got Charlie Becker. They got Elijah Surat. They got Omar Cooper. It's really difficult.

it's very difficult to beat this team. Meanwhile, on the opposite side, this Oregon team, they are no slouch. And in fact, what Dan Lanning has done and what he's built at Oregon, I don't think it can be overstated. When you look at the last three years, Oregon is 38 and four in the last three seasons. Those four losses are to Washington twice, and that was a Washington team that played for the national championship against Michigan, to Ohio State last year, who won the national champion. and then Indiana earlier this year, who they're playing right now in the national semifinal. He's 48 and 7 as the Oregon head coach, back-to-back 13 win seasons. This is a great program, a great program.

They are deep, they are strong at almost every spot on the field. They just happen to be going against right now a team that is suffocatingly good. And we saw that play out in the Rose Bowl. So Oregon's going to have to play really well in the defensive front seven and stop that run game, them under four yards. When they get their chances, Dante Moore in the offense, they've got to capitalize. We can't have the mistakes and the miscues like the penalties and the turnovers. And quite frankly, Dan Lannings are going to have to manage a really great game because if you miss an opportunity against Indiana, there's a good likelihood that they will win the game. They're just

that surgical right now. They're that methodical, like I said, suffocatingly good, this Indiana team. Now, if there's one team that could do it, it would be Oregon. There's very few teams that can go out there and hang with this Indiana team. Oregon's one of them. We already saw it one time this year. I think they need to run the football really well. They did not do a good job of that in their first matchup. Part of that was the sack yardage. If you actually peel that away and you look at what their running backs did in run plays, they got 24 carries for 4.8 yards per carry. That's pretty good against Indiana. They need to sit there. The best way to protect the quarterback against the Hoosiers is keep the quarterback out of third and long. So I think Oregon's going to need

run the football, run the football quite often in particular early in the down set to try to create short-yarded situations and allow Dante more the opportunity to have success. Because if you're in passing situations against Indiana, the zone is too intricate. The rush is too good. And like we saw from Julian Sand and Ty Simpson in the last two matchups, there's a lot of pat in in the football in the backfield because there's nowhere to go with it. Their zone is just too good in the back end. I could talk all day about that game, but you've got to make a pick at the end of the day.

I think it's going to be a phenomenal game. I'm going to take Indiana and this one, 27, 21. They are four and a half point favorites. I'm going to give those four and a half. I'm going to take Indiana. And I'm going to say Indiana 27, 21, and they go play for a national champion. Should be a great game.

Should be a great game and I can't wait for it. What's up, Clats Show fans? If you're looking for a great gift idea or something fun to do with your friends and family, look no further than Seat Geek. With over 35 million downloads, Seat Geek is the number. number one rated ticketing app out there. Now, there are more than 70,000 events listed,

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Make sure you click the link in the description to download the app and have the code automatically added to your account so you can use it later. A huge thank you to Seat Geek for sponsoring today's show. All right. Now the Fiesta Bowl, Miami and Ole Miss. Miami is a three and a half point favorite. And when I first take a look at this matchup and I watched some of the film on this matchup.

I'll be honest, the first thing I thought, and Miami fans are going to love this, because the last thing Miami fans want is me picking Miami, because I picked against them in the first two rounds and they won. And they did an incredible job in both of those games, on the road against Texas A&M and then beating Ohio State in the way that they did that. So they don't want any part of me talking, you know, glowingly about Miami, but I'm going to, but I'm going to. However, however, when I first looked at this, I thought to myself, you know, this old Miss team resembles the SMU team that they already lost to. Why did they lose to SMU?

And it's by the way, an SMU team that I just spent some time around down at the Holiday Bowl in San Diego with Rhett Lashley. And we had a conversation about Miami. And listen, we both talked about how dominant they were up front on the offensive line and the defensive line. That defensive line is excellent, so good. Bain and Mesidor are just all. over the field, their motor, their ability, their ability to bend. It's really good. One thing that SMU was able to do was utilize tempo on offense, so a quicker tempo, to try to tire those pass rushers down and the ability to get the ball on the perimeter in the first and second quarter as quickly as possible. And what that did is it let the tempo go. It got them to snap the football quite often, and then it started to tire out the rusher.

and once those rushers got a little tired in the second half, it was easier to play offense. And SMU took advantage of that. Okay? And SMU ultimately won that game. And Ole Miss resembles that team. I think Shambliss is better than Jennings. Okay?

This Ole Miss offense, they can run the ball with Lacey. They can get it on the perimeter. Trinidad Chambliss can create. He's wonderful creating. Man, he was good against Georgia. buying time, showing off his strong arm, his accurate arm down the field. So the first blush, I really liked, I really liked Ole Miss in this game. And the question for me about Ole Miss was just like,

all right, would they be able to hold up on the line of scrimmage, in particular against that offensive line and the defensive line? Would they be able to hold up? That's the main question of this game. And then it's like, hold on. No, it's not the main question of this game. Who's coaching for Old Miss is the question of this game? I can't believe that we're in this situation where the head coach of Ole Miss playing in the national semifinal, Pete Golding, is audibly saying like, well, I don't really know what's going on with the offensive coaching staff.

Are we kidding? What in the world is going on? In what world are we operating? Oh, yeah. We're operating in a world that was created by coaches because they fought for, a lot of them in the SEC. like Lane Kiffin specifically, fought for this calendar because they didn't want a transfer portal in March or May because they didn't want players on their roster that they knew that they didn't want on their roster for the next fall. So in order to avoid that awkwardness and have a more substantial

spring ball with the roster that you intend to have in the fall, those guys fought for a January transfer portal. And then Lane used it as an excuse. to leave Old Miss right before the playoff. So this is what I find so frustrating about this entire situation is that this moment is about to be so special for the players. This should be about Lacey and Shambliss and all these players at Ole Miss that have put themselves in this position to go out and compete for and potentially win a championship.

And yet they're not being given the best possible opportunity to do that. Because coaches, this is not their moment. They had their moment. coaches are there to do a lot of things. It's not their moment, though. It's their time to go in there and build, push, develop, love on, do all these things to allow the players to have the most possible success that they can have. And the reason we're in this situation where Ole Miss doesn't know what's going on with the offensive coaching staff is because of Lane and his decision.

And listen, I'm not going to begrudge him his decision. But I said in that big noon kickoff, prior to the Michigan, Ohio State game, I said all Lane had to do was look in the mirror because the opportunity to compete for a national championship was right in front of him. And guess who was right? I was. This is the chance that Ole Miss has. This is the chance that any coach has. And now Pete Golding has more playoff wins than Lane Kiffin. So the frustration for me is that this moment should be about the players.

now we're talking about is Charlie Weiss back to game plan for the offense? Now, I have my feelings about whether Charlie should have just stayed at Ole Miss in the first place. I think he should have. It should have been his offense and he could have called plays. And he doesn't have to go and be under Lane Kiffin and watch Lane call plays into the future. Charlie proved that with a win over Georgia. But now we're sitting here and we don't know what's going on with the offensive coaching staff. They should be there to build the game plan, then implement the game plan,

and then start to execute the game plan and then ultimately call it. It's not just about who's there on Thursday. It's about who's there the last seven or eight days because that's what football is all about. That's what building a game plan is all about. What should have happened in this situation, what should have happened is that Lane should have allowed those offensive coaches to just stay in Oxford and focus on the playoff until its conclusion whenever that is. Not this back and forth and I need you for a recruiting visit for a quarterback who,

by the way, didn't even commit to LSU because guess why? These commitments don't happen in a vacuum. By the way, all these players saw what just happened, Lane, when you left a team right before the playoff. So, like, I'm frustrated by this situation because of the players. And I wish that these offensive coaches would have been there for the entire week, could have built this game plan and ultimately gone out there and executed that game plan and then move on to wherever you want to move on to,

after the season, but that's not the way that this has gone. So because of that, it's made me rethink what I believe will take place in this game, because here's what I know about this game. What I know about this game is that Miami has something they can rely on, and it's at the line of scrimmage on both sides. I already touched on this, but this offensive line with Maui Noah, the run game with Mark Fletcher, what they've allowed is Miami to play offensive football and not put Carson Beck in a position where he's got to throw the football on third and long.

How many times was he in third and manageable and he was able to get it with his feet, huge first downs with his feet, get it with a checkdown, move the chains. He hasn't even had to throw the football for over 150 yards in this playoff because they've controlled the game and the tempo of the game and the line of scrimmage in the game. And if they can do that, they're going to have a great chance to win this game. Now, on the flip side, this becomes about corraling Trinidad Chamblis. Because if he's running around creating, who knows how many points Ole Miss can score. This is a very good offense, and it's an offense that's led by a quarterback that can get hot.

And like I said, he can create a lot of problems. So that's the biggest issue in the game. Right there, that's the biggest question. Can Miami put back in a position where all he has to do is manage manageable situations, and can Trinidad Chambliss create some magic for Ole Miss? That's where this game is won and lost for both units. What do I think is going to happen? Listen, the quickest way to be defeated is to be distracted. Miami fans, I am so sorry to do this to you after not picking you in the first two rounds with wins. I've got to go with the canes. Miami wins it 30 to 24 as a three and a half point favorite. They cover the three and a half. And Miami goes on to face Indiana for the national championship. A couple of other things that I wanted to touch on. We got some Transfer Portal news around the country. Indiana is cleaning up right now in the transfer report.

even while they're preparing for a national semi-final. They got their quarterback next year, Josh Hoover. Mendoza through the most RPO's this year of anybody in college football. You know who was second on that list? Josh Hoover from TCU. And you know, at least I do, or at least I guess I should say I trust, that Kurt Signetti is going to evaluate properly because that's exactly what's happened over the last couple of years.

So Josh Hoover, he's going to Indiana to be the quarterback. Hoover also is going to have great targets on the outside. Obviously, Charlie Becker is still going to be there at Indiana, or at least we think he's still going to be there at Indiana. And then Nick Marsh transferred in from Michigan State. Nick's one of the better players in the country, one of the best wide receiving guys in the portal. So Nick Marsh going to Indiana,

that's going to make them really stout on the offensive side, as you would expect. They've got a lot of other guys that I think are going to be starters for them, an edge player from Kansas State, top five edge guy in the portal, Burnham from Notre Dame, another edge guy. They got a safety from Wisconsin, who's a good player. Preston Zachman, sank's a safety from Cincinnati. They got a running back from Boston College who led them in rushing Turbo Richard.

So Signetti, who's been one of the great evaluators and team builders over the last couple of years, looks to be reloading as he prepares for the national semifinal against Oregon. Meanwhile, Penn State had a lot of guys go into the portal, but now getting a lot of guys out of the portal, in particular from their coach's last school. So Matt Campbell came from Iowa State, getting a lot of Iowa State guys and a lot of veteran guides. They've got Rocco Beck, the quarterback from Iowa State. He's coming into State College. He'll be there.

Brommer and Berkel, the tied ends. They're going to be there. 14 total players from Iowa State are going to be heading to State College and playing for Penn State and Matt Campbell there. Rocco Beck is a big one, though. They used to talk about all the time at Iowa State. He's the reason why they had a chance in most games. and he played great in the fourth quarter, and I think he'll do that at Penn State as well.

They also got their defensive coordinator. Danton Lynn is going to go back home. That's where he played. He's going to leave USC, and he's going to be the defensive coordinator for Matt Campbell at Penn State. So that's a great hire. Denton Lynn's one of the great young coaches in college football. He will be a head coach at some point,

but right now going back to State College and he's going to be the defensive coordinator. There. Some news surrounding Michigan, Kyle Whittingham has hired not everybody, but a lot of his staff. Offensive coordinator, Jason Beck. He's going to come in from Utah. He's going to follow Kyle Whittingham over there.

And then he gets Jay Hill back. He went to BYU a couple of years ago, but he had spent a lot of time with Kyle at Utah. So Jay Hill is now going to go and be the defensive coordinator under Winningham for Michigan. He also retained the running back coach, Tony Alford. That was a tremendous hire. I like Tony a lot, and I think he's a great coach. He retained defensive line coach Lou Esposito, as well as a late hire right before Sharon got fired. He had hired Kerry Combs to be the special teams guy.

And so Kerry is going to stay on as a special teams coordinator there. And then coming from Utah, the offensive line coach, Jim Harding, their wide receiver coach, Micah Simon, he's going to be there. He was with Beck, obviously, and he's bringing in. Kyle's bringing his brother in Freddie Whittingham. So all of those guys going. But they are losing some players to the portal. This was surprising. They had a lot of red shirt freshman on that offense and a lot of really good players in particular up front.

Two of them headed to the portal. Jake Winera, the right guard and Andrew Sprague, the right tackle, both in the portal. Zeke Berry starting defensive back, he's in the portal. Cole Sullivan, who started some games and they were high on. He's in the portal. Jaden Mangum, the safety. He's in the portal for Michigan. So some hits and some misses for Michigan, as I'm sure a lot of those Utah players are going to be headed into Ann Arbor to

play for the Wolverines. That'll do it. Our next show is going to be dropped on Saturday. That's right, right after these national semifinals, we're going to have one on Thursday, one on Friday, and then I'm going to record, and we're going to give you our instant reaction that will come out on Saturday. So make sure to tune into that. Can't wait for that. Make sure to subscribe to YouTube as quickly as you possibly can. Get down into the comments. I'll try to get down there as well. Enjoy the national semifinals, everybody, in this crazy time with the transfer portal open. I think these games are going to be great. Have a great week. Thank you.